


To Fly

by heavenlyhost



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-08 07:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenlyhost/pseuds/heavenlyhost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Clint Barton wants is a pair of wings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Fly

He watches because it’s what he’s good at.

Maybe that’s what happens when people walk out of your life so often; you just get good at watching them leave, at watching the world spin without you. He’s the anchor that gets used only when it’s needed, but is otherwise useless, just an extra weight the ship has to carry.

He’s always wished he could be a hawk. Everyone calls him Hawkeye, they call him that because he has sharp vision and looks like he’s flying when he moves. Clint used to imagine he was, too. In the circus, when they would leap and fling and hurl their bodies through the air, Clint would close his eyes and imagine he was soaring.

He didn’t choose Hawkeye because of what he could see. He chose it because of what he couldn’t.

-

He had been hiding in the vent, perched up high and staring down into Phil’s office. He’d been young, then, still idealistic even though he’d lost everything. This new place with sterile walls, shiny floors, and polished shoes had been a new home, and Clint had never been one to resist the offer of _home_.

“What are you doing, Barton?” Coulson had asked, looking for all the world like he had never even noticed Clint. He stayed bent over his desk, writing with his fancy pen on thick white paper stacked in a manila folder. Clint hadn’t thought he’d noticed.

For a long time he said nothing.

“I want to fly,” he whispered, and Coulson finished his sentence, signed his name with all the professionalism his job demanded of him, and then sat up straight in his chair.

“We’ll get you enrolled in the pilot’s training.”

It wasn’t what Clint meant, but he felt grateful anyway.

-

Coulson was the first person that didn’t treat Clint like he was indebted to him.

Clint still felt like he owed Phil, regardless of the treatment, but he privately liked it. He liked when he was handed a bow without having to ask, when his quiver was full of arrows that did all sorts of things, when his favorite snacks would be resting in all the places he liked to perch.

Clint wanted to say thank you, but he was never quite sure how, and a small part of him was terrified that if he tried, Coulson would suddenly stop.

Phil never brought it up, so Clint never said thank you.

-

When he was first briefed on the mission, Clint hated his target.

It was ironic, to hate someone for being so cold, so ruthless, when Clint himself was no better, but S.H.I.E.L.D. had been so good at covering his eyes. They had encouraged self-righteousness, and Clint had been young enough to believe in the nobility of his actions.

And so the hawk hunted the spider.

-

But the Black Widow was no different from the Hawk.

He had held his bow, string pulled tight, arrow nocked and ready to fly.

“I’m ready,” she had said, staring him straight in the eyes.

And Clint had let his grip relax, bow pointed toward the ground, arrow pulled away. He’d pulled away the comm. in his ear and made a different call.

-

Natalia Romanova became Natasha Romanoff, though she remained the Black Widow.

Clint watched her from the rafters, still and silent. She never spoke to him and he never spoke to her, but then, they never needed to say anything.

They were partnered together, and they completed every mission with a proficiency that no other pair of agents had ever demonstrated.

In Budapest they nearly died.

But they got the job done.

-

It was as random a day as any other when Clint looked at Natasha and saw something different.

For a while she indulged him. They scratched their itch with the same proficiency that they had for missions. They moved in sync, pressed and touched and felt in all the right places. Clint stumbled farther down the rabbit hole, let himself be blinded by what he was sure was love.

He tried to kiss her on the mouth once, when they were both sitting in bed and he felt like he might actually be able to fly, but she leaned back.

“Natasha, I-“

She raised both hands, cupping the sides of his face, petting his hair back from his face. “Love is for children,” she had said, and had kissed him on the forehead.

She left the room, and that was the last time she ever did.

-

“You have heart,” he had said.

 _But I want wings_.

-

Loki was tall and proud and self-righteous.

Loki was pale and hurt and self-loathing.

Clint understood better than he ever thought possible. Loki was an anchor, frozen in place while the world spun. Loki only wanted to be the sun, and Clint only felt in orbit when he stood near the god.

He looked at blue eyes, fluorescent and shiny under Loki’s control, and smiled.

-

“What do you need?” he had asked, and Clint had told him.

Later he had asked again, and Clint had stared up at the god, confused. Loki had smiled down at him like he was a child.

“What do you want, Barton?”

“I want to fly,” he answered.

“Then I will give you wings.”

-

They moved in rhythm, in passion and understanding and feeling.

Loki was cold and broken and angry, but Clint didn’t mind, only wrapped arms around the shattered pieces of him, held him place to keep him from falling apart. Loki tore him open, filled all the empty places with ice that burned and soothed. Clint didn’t stumble down any rabbit hole. He soared, was illuminated like the moon, by Loki. He privately enjoyed his ability to see the shining shards of glass that made up the demigod.

-

When Loki was gone from his mind, Clint felt hollow and blind.

Loki had not abandoned him. Natasha had pulled him back.

There was regret in her eyes, and Clint wondered absently if she was seeing him differently, like he had once done with her.

But Clint was no longer disillusioned.

S.H.I.E.L.D. was made up of liars and Natasha was too late.

-

When he looked in the mirror he saw nothing but blue eyes that did not shine.

-

“And what about you, Agent Barton? What has the tesseract shown you?”

_You._


End file.
